


New Year

by amarivelous



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, adorable grumpy people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9196550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarivelous/pseuds/amarivelous
Summary: "Don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what’s bothering you?" Ana and Jack on New Year's Eve, in the minutes before midnight.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ana and Jack’s panel in the new Reflections comic made me sad, so I tried to make it better. Tried.

She settles to the floor beside his cot, nesting silently in the piling fabric of her coat. Almost silently. Even through the chatter outside their window - a smattering of voices, no more than a dozen, but still too loud for his taste - and a fog of sleep he pinpoints her footsteps, her shifting. He opens his eyes and stares at the back of her head, a silhouette against the soft yellow light prying through the blinds into their bare room.

If it were anyone else, Jack would've thought he caught them at something embarrassing - something he clearly wasn't meant to see. But he knows her, and more important, she knows _him_. A month together after six years apart, and they drift into this silent conversation as easily as she drifts down next to him.

It's unsettling. And welcoming. He doesn't know which to focus on; he blinks, keeping his eyes on her braid as she lowers her veil and leans back against his cot.

He's rusty - he can't tell what she wants him to say. "What is it?" he finally mutters into the dark.

Ana chuckles softly. "You're always so restless, Jack. Were you sleeping at all?"

"Never sleep too well anymore," he answers. "Can't say you're helping."

"Try to relax," she says, nodding toward the corner of the room. "You don't want to curse yourself."

He follows her movement to the clock at the room's far wall, nestled in the glow of its own steady blue light reflecting off the floor tiles. 23:37. It takes him a moment to realize what she means - the new year. Another turn around the sun with barely anything accomplished. He grumbles.

"Or you can keep being a cranky old man," she says, light reflecting off her hair as she exaggerates a shrug.

"What can I say? It suits me."

She clucks her tongue, then lets the quiet settle back in as she plucks at her braid and idly starts to unravel it. The corners of his mouth turn down. He waits.

23:42. That's enough. "Don't suppose you're going to tell me what's bothering you?"

Ana makes a sound, a puff of air trying to take a chuckle's shape. Running a hand through the hair at the back of her neck, she removes the last traces of her braid, shaking out a wave of silver. "I wonder," she says, slowly, measuring her words like she would the wind before a shot, "what Fareeha is doing now."

They hit him with a _pang_ , guilt seeping into the cracks left behind. "Something responsible, I'd wager." he responds, aiming for a softer tone.

That got a real snicker out of Ana this time. "That's what I'm worried about," she says. "She's still young, she should be having fun. I hope someone's there to tell her."

It's meant to be a joke. But he hears the sad curl at the edge of her voice, feels the somber tension in her silence.

"Ana," he says carefully. _We can put you in contact_ , he wants to go on. _Just for a while. If we're careful--_ But he knows that she knows better: the little girl who used to be joined to them at the heel, begging for new stories about daring rescues and glorious victories (Ana would roll her eyes indulgently when he took a knee and wove some new yarn for little Fareeha in his most dramatic voice, when he was a different man) has grown up. She's made something of herself - months later, gossip about the Helix squad that tamed Anubis still drifts through Cairo, right outside their window. She's building a good, honest, _legitimate_ career. The sort that would crumble if she was caught associating with a wanted vigilante.

"It's all right, Jack," Ana responds knowingly. "One day I'll see my Fareeha again. But a mother worries."

Outside, the voices get louder and rowdier, a buzz of indecipherable sound. Ana leans heavily against the cot's flimsy edge. He sees her tilt her head back, imagines her closing her good eye (still such a strange thought) and hears her carefully evening out her breathing.

He used to be good at this. He used to be the best. But Strike Commander Jack Morrison's talent for lighting a fire in the bellies of an entire army was lost long ago. So when he shuffles across the coarse fabric and drapes an arm around her - across her chest, hand resting on her shoulder - it feels ungainly and awkward. Still, it only takes a moment for her to relax against him.

"It's silly," she finally says, brushing fingers beneath her eye before lightly gripping his forearm. "I don't usually get sentimental this time of year. I think you've cursed me with this."

"Sorry." He knows what she means. The picture of Gerard tucked and untucked from his bag, Jesse McCree's name on a wanted poster saved from Dorado, a face he hates sliding into his thoughts even more forcefully and regularly than before - all feel fresher, rawer than they were before she reemerged at his side, a phantom in her own right. But feeling her familiar presence now, the passing years making it unnerving but no less comforting, is low on his list of regrets.

He hears the whooping outside change into the rhythmic, excited drum of a countdown. There's no crash of fireworks, no screaming crowds - just the glow beyond their blinds and her steady weight under his arm, hand moving to clasp his at her shoulder.

He lied. He's not sorry. It's been a long time.


End file.
